Wow! That flashrom thing had gone under my radar. I see that my motherboard is OK (MSI MS-7255 - P4M890M, including southbridge VIA VT8237A) but can't find the BIOS chip as supported hardware.
Very interesting, thank you very much. However, as dealing with flashrom would be off-topic here, I'm emailing to you off-list. Best regards El mié, 10 nov 2021 a las 14:34, Ivan Ivanov (<[email protected]>) escribió: > If you need a reliable flashing environment right now, you can use any > bootable USB Linux with a flashrom opensource flashing tool - which > could be installed as easily as a simple "sudo apt-get install > flashrom" command (for Linux Mint). And then, if your board supports > the internal flashing mode (most likely, if your board old enough) - > then using a flashrom you can install a new BIOS image without using > the external hardware programmer. > > > I'm going to purchase an up-to-date flashed BIOS chip as a backup > anyway. That's cheaper (about €10) > > This is a waste of money. €10 for a single chip? For this money, you > can buy from China (i.e. AliExpress) like 30 chips with a free > shipping, and - using a green pcb USB CH341A programmer (which is dirt > cheap like €2), which is supported by this opensource flashrom tool, > you can install any BIOS image on this BIOS chip. Also, since you're > doing it by yourself, it will be more guaranteed that BIOS won't have > a malware like BadBIOS (although not 100% - if you want a better > protection, switch to opensource BIOS like coreboot). Don't forget a > DIP8 / PLCC remover, to safely extract a BIOS chip from a socket, or a > SOIC8 test clip to attach to a chip if you are flashing a laptop. I've > left enough breadcrumbs for you to explore, but if anything is unclear > - please drop me an e-mail and I'll be happy to help. > > ср, 10 нояб. 2021 г. в 16:20, Betibeteka Beranduetxea < > [email protected]>: > > > > Hi, thanks for your reply. > > > > I understood. I will explore that way. > > > > That "drivers could interfere with the flashing process" is new to me. > Of course in the past -when floppies were still a common thing- I have > always upgraded my BIOSes via win98 boot floppy. I already installed > FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 on an old, spare IDE disk, and I'm able to read an USB > stick. So I was thinking about to copy the update and flash utility to the > hard disk, then restart so USB isn't needed, then proceed with the > flashing. That could be an easy way to update as many different machines as > needed. But after reading your answer, I get this could be "bad". Am I > right? Could not needed modules (except, say, keyboard and IDE) be unloaded > before flashing? Would that be "safe" enough? I guess that even the > "floppy" image will have to load some drivers... > > > > I'm going to purchase an up-to-date flashed BIOS chip as a backup > anyway. That's cheaper (about €10) than to purchase a 10 floppy box (about > €35 here) and it will be nice to have it as a backup. But, having that > backup, I would like to do some tests... > > > > Thank you again > > > > El mié, 10 nov 2021 a las 1:49, E. Auer (<[email protected]>) escribió: > >> > >> > >> Hi! I think for BIOS flashing, a good way would be to start > >> with a minimal boot floppy image, you can find that online > >> for FreeDOS. Or use one with more apps on it and remove > >> some of them to make space. Then, you mount or open the > >> image with a free tool (depends on the OS, in Linux you > >> can use mtools as user or actually mount the image if you > >> are admin, as well as using any of various other methods) > >> to add the BIOS flash tool and BIOS file to it. > >> > >> Next, you use the boot floppy image to make a CD or DVD > >> bootable in emulation mode. Most BIOS variants support > >> booting from 1.2, 1.44 and 2.88 MB floppy images and a > >> variety of CD/DVD writing tools let you specify an image > >> if you select that you want to make a bootable CD/DVD. > >> > >> The advantage is that you will not need any CD/DVD drivers > >> which could interfere with the BIOS flash process, or any > >> other drivers apart from those that the flash too might be > >> needing. And of course keyboard drivers, if you like. For > >> many cases, you can use the small MKEYB to cover popular > >> layouts without needing additional data files. > >> > >> The disadvantage is that the booted DOS "floppy" will be > >> read-only and that it will not have access to the rest of > >> the CD unless you also put the CD drivers on the "floppy". > >> > >> You could probably also work with MEMDISK and a Linux > >> style boot menu instead of the pure BIOS floppy image > >> boot method. This will allow compressed floppy images > >> and writing, but of course any changes will be lost as > >> soon as you reboot the PC, because the floppy image is > >> never updated by MEMDISK. Changes only exist in RAM. > >> > >> Also, MEMDISK again is a bit like a driver, so it can > >> interfere with your flash tool. > >> > >> Of course, the best way would be to have a BIOS which > >> supports loading a BIOS file from any connected drive's > >> root directory, including USB sticks, without having to > >> boot anything from those, but a BIOS which is too old to > >> boot from USB will also be too old to have that feature. > >> > >> Regards, Eric > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Freedos-user mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Freedos-user mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >
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